Six days ago, in Poland, the President reacted to two fatal shootings of young black men by police, one in Louisiana and another in Minnesota, by saying, “these fatal shootings are not isolated incidents.” The message was clear enough. Two days later, an African American took revenge on a police force in Texas that, the way he saw things, was part of a system of law enforcement that was murdering young black men.

The question for the Republic of South Africa now is whether its people have the will, and its politicians the skill, to live up to the dream and the potential which Nelson Mandela saw, created, and embodied.